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Playing banjo with fiddle and more
From abbey on 1/19/2012 8:06:17 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGnY55UEkCg
One example of back-up banjo. I don't quite understand what he is doing here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DKAz6HE5tg
Another, John Herrmann on this one.
I don't have a good sense of what the banjo should sound like when playing with others. I know there are different styles of playing, not everyone is the same. I'm looking for a clip that I can say, I want to sound like THAT but haven't found the right one.
3 Comments |
 | atleson says:
1/19/2012 8:42:43 AM
i know what you mean. I've played for a while now, but i've never figured out what players like John Herrmann or Ritchie Stearns, to use only two examples, actually do. I've even had workshops with them---my own limitations obviously.
jim
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 | oldwoodchuckb says:
1/19/2012 3:43:11 PM
A quick comment on the videos:
In the first video you have a banjo player learning the tune as he goes, so there is quite a bit of work going on to find the tune. His system is much like mine, and like me he is having trouble when the tune changes key - something that fiddlers never tell you.
As to his technique, he is another sketch melody person. He has found the most important note of the A part melody, and slowly is coming up with the B part. I quit early because I have to go out for a bit, so he may have it all down by the end.
His thumb is "riding the 5th" string most of the time with roughly one out of every four strokes dropping to the 0pen 2nd string (I think) in a purely rhythmic move. It frequently does not matter if this note is "right" in the context - his playing is staccato an fast, there is little need to be completely "en harmonic".
The Hermann film I'm familiar with. He is also playing sketch melody only he is also doing many clucks - to me it looks as if he is doing the Big Cluck I show in a video (Lesson 3) on hte RSB site.
On Ritchie -- Good Luck! Every time I had him almost figured out he would change. Ritchie is very fond of doing rapid runs up the neck to main notes in the scale of the tune. He usd to throw that in a lot.
He also likes to do chromatic runs from time to time. Sometimes he will shape the chromatic runs to ape the shape of the actual melody.
He likes to do a barre or two of Ukulele Stroke every now and again. I used to teach that but my hand will not even allow me to demo it at speed now. I don't know if mine was the same as his but mine consisted of alternating down strokes with the finger and UP strokes with the thumb across the 4th and 5th string. Frank lee dose a similar stroke that involves Only the finger and is acquired by rotating the wrist - I think. I've never seen him play live - only on film. His playing is similar to Ritchie's in many respects.
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 | abbey says:
1/20/2012 8:18:57 PM
Thank you. Its interesting how much you can see when it all happens so fast I don't know what is going on. I wonder if there is a way to slow down the video and maybe I can interpret a little more of what is being played.
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